In his first week as president, Trump signed an Executive Order which directed the withholding of federal funds, except as mandated by law, from sanctuary jurisdictions that prevent their police or other local entities from exchanging immigration status information with ICE.

When Trump tried to implement this policy in California, a federal judge held in a preliminary decision that the directive was unconstitutional. A permanent injunction was ordered on November 20, 2017.

California raised the sanctuary controversy with Trump to a new level by enacting three sanctuary laws. The Justice Department filed a lawsuit on March 6, 2018, to invalidate these laws.

The federal courts in California are in the Ninth Circuit, and I don’t think Trump can prevail with an immigration issue related to one of his executive orders in that circuit.

But that won’t stop Trump. He can appeal to the Supreme Court. And the presence of so many undocumented aliens in California makes it easy to predict what he will do next if he fails with the lawsuit.

Nolan Rappaport was detailed to the House Judiciary Committee as an executive branch immigration law expert for three years; he subsequently served as an immigration counsel for the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims for four years. Prior to working on the Judiciary Committee, he wrote decisions for the Board of Immigration Appeals for 20 years.